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Traversers are a kind of sapient creature originating from the Traverser Belt. They are colonial organisms, made up of trillions of individual single-celled lifeforms working together. They are huge, like living islands swimming through the sea,[1][2] and they are known to collect other lifeforms like animals and plants.[3] A grouping of traversers is called an archipelago, and while they are usually solitary creatures, they will meet in groups from time to time.[4]

Appearance[]

Many traversers look like living islands, bearing a rocky carapace on which plants and animals reside. Second Person Singular, one such traverser, apparently has anatomy and habits pretty typical of their class.[5][2] First Person Singular is different: she resembles a pale, gelatinous blob with animals embedded deep inside,[6] and her initial actions and intentions could have resulted in more destruction than most traversers seem to cause.[7] Aside from these two kinds, there are apparently many more subspecies of varying size and appearance.[8] Traversers are able to communicate with other sapient species via methods like telepathy and radio,[9][10] and can step east/west [11] as well as north/south.[12]

Origins[]

Traversers originated from the Traverser Belt: a band of worlds where the primordial single-celled creatures were too primitive to afford to compete with each other, so instead all the microbial life in the oceans came together to serve a singular purpose, forming giant colonial organisms. However, they often travel far across the Long Earth from their original home belt, to collect animals from more familiar biospheres.[13][14][15] Their collections appear to follow a pattern: they gather animals which are medium-sized, like humans and horses; nothing as small as a rodent nor as large as a whale.[16][17] Some traversers nurture their passengers, creating a safe environment of docile creatures where no large, complex animals are harmed.[18]

It is believed that at some point during the traversers’ evolution, they were altered for mysterious reasons by an extraterrestrial alien species. It’s possible they were modified specifically for the purpose of collecting animal specimens from across the Long Earth.[19][12] In 2070, the traversers mysteriously disappeared from the Long Earth just as a signal known as The Invitation was received from space.[11][20] The later Uncle Arthur expedition discovered they had stepped north, taking themselves and their collections to the ocean exoplanet Cosmos North 3.[21]

References[]

  1. The Long Earth- page 391
  2. 2.0 2.1 The Long Utopia- page 355
  3. The Long Utopia- page 357
  4. The Long Cosmos- page 440
  5. The Long War- pages 417-418
  6. The Long Earth- pages 379-381
  7. The Long Earth- page 388
  8. The Long War- page 421
  9. The Long Earth- page 376
  10. The Long Earth- page 381
  11. 11.0 11.1 The Long Cosmos- page 206
  12. 12.0 12.1 The Long Cosmos- page 425
  13. The Long Earth- pages 385-386
  14. The Long Utopia- pages 356-357
  15. The Long Utopia- pages 361-362
  16. The Long War- page 422
  17. The Long Utopia- page 362
  18. The Long War- pages 420-421
  19. The Long Utopia- pages 362-363
  20. The Long Cosmos- page 361
  21. The Long Cosmos- pages 422-426
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